On Wed, 2008-10-01 at 18:26 -0400, Bill Davidsen wrote:
c) I am running the 32 bit version of Linux. Would it make any difference to my RAM access if I ran the 64 bit version ?
Maybe, but that's the solution of last resort. If you have the x86_64 "live" CD it's worth looking, but I think there are (at least) two better solutions. First is the PAE kernel. You don't need to go diddling your setup to try it, just open a terminal and run yum install kernel-PAE to get a PAE kernel. Then reboot, and when the boot menu comes up, select the PAE version. Run the free command and see if it found your memory.
The next step is to wait for the 2.6.27 kernel. WARNING: if you have e1000 hardware, don't try this kernel until the issues have been resolved, see the kernel list, this kernel *may* make your e1000 into a brick by eating the flash firmware. It's being worked on, it's low probability, but wait as week, good people are trying it.
The reason 2.6.27 is desirable for you is that a lot of work has gone into the MTRR register mapping, and it *may* be able to describe your memory where the 2.6.26 can't. Take that for what it's worth, I would try PAE now, and wait until 2.6.27 is patched (unless you have a totally different hardware).
Great post. Thanks for all the advice. I will wait and see how 2.6.72 works.
LG